diff --git a/.semaphore/release/release.yml b/.semaphore/release/release.yml
index 73cf3afda52..c2631acb46e 100644
--- a/.semaphore/release/release.yml
+++ b/.semaphore/release/release.yml
@@ -53,6 +53,11 @@ blocks:
         # Credentials for accessing gcloud, needed to push images to gcr
         - export GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS=$HOME/secrets/gcr-credentials.json
         - gcloud auth activate-service-account --key-file=${GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS}
+        # Manually log in to GCR until we can test the gcr credentials helper
+        - cat ${GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS} | docker login -u _json_key --password-stdin https://gcr.io
+        - cat ${GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS} | docker login -u _json_key --password-stdin https://eu.gcr.io
+        - cat ${GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS} | docker login -u _json_key --password-stdin https://asia.gcr.io
+        - cat ${GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS} | docker login -u _json_key --password-stdin https://us.gcr.io
       jobs:
       - name: "Release on Semaphore VM"
         execution_time_limit: